Forums Forums Wirral Information Wirral Council library closures

We should realise that in any organisation, the Peter Principle* operates. In general, in publicly funded enterprises, this is less likely to be recognised and acted upon. In a private organisation driven by profit, it's more likely to be spotted.

*Peter Principle: "In any organisation, a person will be promoted to his/her level of incompetence".

Most of the privatised companies in this country don't actually make a profit of their own accord. It's just subsidised by the taxpayer.

There seems to be some ridiculous idea in this country [since 1979] that private is good and public is bad. Such an idea is often spouted on these pages too by an inordinate number of Tory boys. The likes of libraries and hospital shouldn't be run for profit. They should be run for the benefit of society, even if it is at a loss. Of course, they should be run competently.

As for private companies being the panacea for all our troubles, well that's just crap. The amount of scandals, greed and general barstard in British private-sector companies is truly breathtaking. G4S being just the latest example.

Yes, I realise that this will be off topic but only as Serco came into topic on the previous page. Go to Serco.com and click 'defence'(if you haven't already). Very worrying, I would think. Reads like total control!

Sorry for the interruption.

I thought we had a Ministry of Defence to do all that granny.
'Tis frightening, what next
Decimate the armed forces, let them supply soldiers,build bigger and better missiles costing billions of £s, maybe take control of the prisons (forgot someone else has their finger in that slice of the pie)
We should get back to Nationalising our sold-off assets such as gas,electricity and water amongst other things where we can control prices a bit fairer by use of our votes at election times.

they big themselves up way way too much

The reason is Derek that the contracts are given out and are still paid for in part by the authority. The Council or outsourcing body still pays to run the service. It's just that the subsidy becomes a fixed cost with no hidden overspend or staff wages or holidays to pay for.

To outsource the Parks Wirral Council would still have paid about £7,500,000 over 10 years direct to the company running them. The company would take all the staff on a transfer of pay undertaking and then sack them after 3 months and re-employ on half their wages, The company takes all the income from Golf, crematorium and elsewhere and "maximise" their profits. The staff left behind have little or no choice and are sacked if they dissent.

It is a dystopian set up and a return to the Victorian values of doff your cap or else. The new operators run the service by fear for a fraction of the cost and make a tidy profit. They will have forecast how much they can bleed the contract for and may even make small losses in some years to achieve their target income.

Before anyone jumps in to disagree, this happened to my wife in the private sector where her company sold off the "service" parts of their business to small independent operators who did exactly the above.

Control prices by using our votes? That's an interesting idea.

Let's see now, who wouldn't vote for free electricity, gas, water, petro, oil, houses, buses, trains, beer, food, etc?

No self-respecting communists that I know, I'm sure...!

When you've worked in both, it is very true and very prominent. Well said Chris.


Just to agree, Captain America has also hit the nail on the head incase anyone thought his post was wrong.